Opinion TRENDS in Biochemical Sciences Vol.32 No.7 Biochemistry by design Barbara C. Forrest1 and Paul R. Gross2 1 Southeastern Louisiana University, SLU 10484, Hammond, LA 70402, USA 2 303 Linden Ponds Way, ET 607, Hingham, MA 02043, USA Creationists are attempting to use biochemistry to win structure of life. It is the purpose of this book to show acceptance for their doctrine in the public mind and that it does not [2] [emphasis ours]. especially in state-funded schools. Biochemist Michael Because Behe sees the truth of evolutionary theory as Behe is a major figure in this effort. His contention that contingent upon its explanatory adequacy at the molecular certain cellular structures and biochemical processes – level, and because he asserts that in this it has failed, his bacterial flagella, the blood-clotting cascade and the logic implies that he considers evolutionary theory false, at vertebrate immune system – cannot be the products least at the biochemical level. In Darwin’s Black Box, Behe of evolution has generated vigorous opposition from introduces his readers to a ‘new’ theory that he accuses fellow scientists, many of whom have refuted Behe’s mainstream scientists of refusing to acknowledge: claims. Yet, despite these refutations and a decisive defeat in a US federal court case, Behe and his associates There is an elephant in the roomful of scientists who at the Discovery Institute continue to cultivate American are trying to explain the development of life (...) supporters. They are also stepping up their efforts ‘intelligent design’. To a person who does not feel abroad and, worryingly, have achieved some success. obliged to restrict his search to unintelligent causes, Should biochemists (and other scientists) be concerned? the straightforward conclusion is that many bio- We think they should be. chemical systems were designed (...) not by the laws of nature, not by chance and necessity; rather, they Introduction were planned. The designer knew what the systems For more than a decade, creationists at the Discovery would look like when they were completed, then took Institute’s Center for Science and Culture (CSC; www.dis- steps to bring the systems about (...). The conclusion covery.org/csc) have promoted the idea that ‘intelligent of intelligent activity flows naturally from the data design’ (ID) represents a new front in the scientific effort itself – not from sacred books or sectarian beliefs. to explain the emergence of Earth’s life forms. Continuing Inferring that biochemical systems were designed by the tradition of earlier creationism, from which ID is a an intelligent agent is a humdrum process that direct descendant [1], ID creationists aim their efforts at requires no new principles of logic or science. It comes new areas of science. They direct variations of old crea- simply from the hard work that biochemistry has tionist criticisms against developing fields of scientific done in the past forty years (...) [2]. investigation that manifest the always expected, but The problem for ID, however, is that neither Behe himself historically temporary, explanatory lacunae encountered nor any of his creationist colleagues have done any of the in active scientific disciplines. Biochemistry is the area of hard work in the biochemistry to which he refers. Instead of science at which ID creationists have taken their sharpest original research, Behe’s signature contribution to ID has aim. Biochemist and ID creationist Michael Behe, in his been ‘irreducible complexity’ (IC), the claim that complex role as a CSC fellow, helped initiate and continues to be an biological objects comprising functionally integrated parts, integral participant in this rapidly expanding effort. such as a bacterial flagellum, could not have been produced In Darwin’s Black Box, published in August 1996, Behe by natural selection but must have been deliberately and argues that the (relatively new) discipline of biochemistry intelligently designed. But IC is not a new concept. Recount- ‘has pushed Darwin’s theory to the limit’ [2], necessitating ing the 1981 McLean vs Arkansas trial, creationist defense a reassessment of the neo-Darwinian synthesis that revi- witness Norman Geisler recalls the testimony of fellow talized evolutionary theory in the first half of the 20th creationist Ariel Roth, who testified about the supposed century: insufficiency of natural selection to produce ‘complex inte- grated structures’: ‘[When] asked about other evidences for The beginnings of modern biochemistry came only after neo-Darwinism had been officially launched. creation science, Roth mentioned several ‘serious problems’ Thus, (...) neo-Darwinism must be reconsidered in with the evolution model (...) [that included the] difficulty of light of advances in biochemistry. The scientific dis- evolving complex integrated structures since each part of ciplines that were part of the evolutionary synthesis the integrated structure alone would be useless to the are all nonmolecular. Yet for the Darwinian theory of organism’ [3]. Roth was referring to structures such as evolution to be true, it has to account for the molecular the respiratory system. Behe simply applies IC at the molecular level as although it were something new. Corresponding author: Forrest, B.C. ([email protected]). Much more important for understanding the ID Available online 14 June 2007. movement – and Behe’s involvement in it – is his use of www.sciencedirect.com 0968-0004/$ – see front matter ß 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.tibs.2007.06.001 302 Opinion TRENDS in Biochemical Sciences Vol.32 No.7 the statements about ID (included earlier) from Darwin’s have no plans to stop with science; as Phillip Johnson, the ID Black Box in his speech at the Discovery Institute’s God movement’s advisor and de facto leader, asserts, ‘Scientific and Culture Conference of August 1996 [4], the very month naturalism has done its greatest damage in the arts and in which the book was published. This event, the nature of humanities’ [8]. Accordingly, with the publication of CSC which is clear from its title, reveals not only the core reason fellow Richard Weikart’s book, From Darwin to Hitler [9],ID Behe is using biochemistry to promote ID, but also the way has expanded its efforts to include the distortion of history in he and his associates actually understand it: as a religious addition to science. belief, which, once given its rightful place in the edu- Consequently, no part of the curriculum in American cational and cultural mainstream, will reverse the damage schools is safe from the ID movement’s agenda. Neither is that evolutionary theory, the product of science’s natura- the US the only country on the ID movement’s tactical listic methodology, has done to western culture. To reverse map. Countries once considered safely beyond the borders this damage, however, Behe and his ID associates must of creationist influence, such as England, Germany and first secure the acceptance of ID as science in the public Russia [10], are finding themselves increasingly beset by a mind and in state-funded schools. In 2005, Behe’s efforts rise in indigenous interest in ID and the promotional towards this goal earned him the starring role as the most efforts of American ID proponents. prominent scientific witness for the defense in the first legal case contesting the teaching of ID, Kitzmiller et al. vs The biochemist as creationist Dover Area School District [5]. As one of the founding fellows of the Discovery Institute’s Behe and his ID associates at the Discovery Institute Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture, now the have not only co-opted biochemistry as a weapon against CSC, biochemist Behe has a decade-long history of invol- evolutionary biology, but have also taken aim at all the vement in promoting ID [11,12] (Table 1). Since the early major scientific disciplines supporting the modern theory: 1990s, he has been a member of what the ID movement paleontology, geology and so on [6]. However, most recently, calls the ‘Wedge’, which is pursuing its agenda according to ID creationists have begun to use astronomy and cosmology its correspondingly named ‘Wedge Strategy’ [1]. The in the service of their agenda [7]. Given their rejection of the Wedge is a cohort of creationists, including academics naturalistic methodology of science, all disciplines – in- and a few professional scientists, organized to convince cluding physics and chemistry, in addition to science edu- politicians and the larger body politic that ‘Darwinism’ cation in US public schools – are threatened. Moreover, they (evolutionary biology) has collapsed and that there is a Table 1. The development of modern creationism Year Event Refs 1859 Charles Darwin publishes On The Origin of Species [94] 1918 H.J. Muller describes Darwinian mechanism for evolving irreducibly complex biological machines [17] 1925 ‘Scopes Monkey Trial’ in Tennessee marks the beginning of American backlash against evolutiona [84] 1939 After great progress in genetics, H.J. Muller (Nobel laureate, 1946) specifies further the evolution of complex physiological [18] structures and systems 1981 Creationist Ariel Roth testifies in McLean vs Arkansas that natural selection cannot produce ‘complex integrated structures’b [3] 1982 In McLean v. Arkansas, US District Court Judge William Overton rules against balancing evolution with creationism in [85] state-funded schoolsc 1984 Creationist Charles Thaxton publishes The Mystery of Life’s Origin, founding text of ID movement [86]